Former Oculus Meta acquires Imagine Optix, a lens maker that will be the cornerstone of next-generation VR headsets
Meta, whose VR division is formerly a VR company Oculus, may have acquired Image Optix, a company that produces Pancharatnam Berry Phase Lens (PBPL), which is an important component of next-generation VR headsets. KGOnTech reported. Meta has approved the acquisition.
Exclusive: Imagine Optix Bought By Meta --Half Dome 3's Varifocal Tech --Meta, Valve, and Apple on Collision Course? --KGOnTech
Meta's New Optics Advantage; Untangling a Messy Quest Sales Story — The Information
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/meta-s-new-optics-advantage-untangling-a-messy-quest-sales-story
In the real world, the human eye can naturally focus on an object no matter where it looks. To focus on objects at different distances, either stretch and contract the crystalline lens in the eye with muscles to change the focal length, or move both eyes inward to focus on something nearby.
One of the major challenges that plagues VR / AR headsets these days is adjusting visual congestion. The problem with VR / AR is that no matter where you look in the digital world, you're just looking at a fixed screen, the same distance. As a result, it may cause eye strain, nausea, dizziness, and other physical problems.
To solve the problem of congestion adjustment, VR companies are trying to develop headsets that can change the focal length and provide different focal planes. And the PBPL and Geometric Phase Lens (GPL) developed by Imagine Optix are the lens technologies required for this convergence-adjustable headset.
Meta, the developer of Oculus Quest 2 (Meta Quest 2), has also put a lot of effort into developing new breakthrough headsets, including various experiments, large-scale recruitment activities, and a series of team acquisitions. I did.
Then, Meta developed a prototype called 'Half Dome' and announced the third generation prototype 'Half Dome 3' in 2019. KGOnTech stated that Douglas Lanman, director of display system research at Meta Reality Labs, which is involved in Meta's VR / AR business, stated at the time of the announcement at EI 2020 that 'PBPL is used as a zoom lens in Half Dome 3'. I pointed out that I am doing it.
EI 2020 Plenary: Quality Screen Time: Leveraging Computational Displays for Spatial Computing --YouTube
In a presentation at the SPIE AR / VR / MR 2021 conference held in March 2021, Imagine Optix emphasized its PBPL and GPL while touching on Meta's Half Dome 3. KGOnTech interprets this Imagine Optix presentation as a message that 'buy us now, or else this is the last'.
Furthermore, according to KGOnTech, Meta has stated in its patent that it uses PBPL. In 2019, one of the authors of this patent and Meta's LCD application processing engineer, Afsoon Jamari, published a co-authored paper entitled
According to KGOnTech, the official website of Imagine Optix was suddenly deleted in December 2021. According to The Information, Meta officially acknowledged the acquisition of Imagine Optix after KGOnTech suggested a possible acquisition by Meta. However, the purchase price is unknown.
In addition, it seems that Meta was not the only one who was paying attention to Imagine Optix, and in 2018 Valve invested 9 million dollars (about 990 million yen) and also owned the stock of Imagine Optix. matter. However, it turned out that Imagine Optix received a $ 5 million investment from another company in 2020, and it is said that Valve withdrew from Imagine Optix in the wake of this. ..
For the other $ 5 million investor, the relationship between Valve and Apple has deteriorated in 2019, and Apple has filed a patent for GPL technology at the same time that Imagine Optix has raised $ 5 million. Therefore, it seems that some people pointed out that it was Apple.
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in Hardware, Posted by log1i_yk